Anywhere (English Version)
by Drake Rhapsody
Summary: "Bofur was not a resentful person. He wouldn't know how to be so. Two days after, he had already forgotten his confrontation with his King. As much as his words stung him, he never thought of holding it over his head for he knows nothing about guiding people. The task that burdened Thorin's shoulders was hard, and he could not judge him without walking in his boots." No pairings


**This is a translation of another work of mine, in Spanish, with the same title and image. Please, be kind, I think I'm improving my English, and you could help me improve it more with your reviews. I hope you like it.**

**None of what is written down here belongs to me: nor Erebor, nor the Carrock, nor Beorn's House… nothing. ****And no-one.**

**Tolkien signed his Works with indelible ink and, who am I to pretend any profit with the work of such a genius?**

**And the image is from "nerdeeart", from DeviantArt.**

**Good night, here I'm called Drake Rhapsody and this story accepted to be named as:**

**ANYWHERE**

Gandalf stopped to a halt about twenty minutes after leaving the tunnels, starting to number everyone. As they passed by him, the dwarves slowed their path and stopped running a few meters down the hill.

"…Ori, ten. Bifur… Bofur… that's twelve… And Bombur! That makes thirteen" he looked at the group of dwarves that were trying to match their breaths. "Well, Where's Bilbo?"

Nobody answered.

"Where's our hobbit?" repeated, getting more frightened each passing moment, wizard though he was.

The dwarves looked to each other.

"Dori had him" someone said. Immediately, Dori raised both hands, showing them he was not carrying any Halfling tied to his belt.

"Don't blame me!" protested.

Gandalf turned to him, very, very worried:

"Where did you last see him?"

"I saw him slip away when they first collared us" remembered Nori.

Gandalf was able to catch a glimpse of fear in Bofur's eyes, who was trying to regain his breath, hands on his knees. It didn't look like fear of something terrible; it was more like the suspicion of a letdown.

"Well, if we have left him in the tunnels we should go back to get him" said the wizard.

Their hearts sank. Thorin looked daggers at the _Istar_.

"Obviously, our burglar has decided to leave us" he said, with a scornful voice. "He took his chance and buggered off. He missed too much his home. He never should have left it in the first place. Let's go"

Bofur does not know already how he mustered up the courage to face up to Thorin, but he did.

"But… wha' if he's still in the tunnels?" he asked "Wha' if he's not going back to Rivendel?"

"Forget it, Bofur" muttered Bombur, beside him "C'mon, let's go"

But the dwarf reached Thorin in two strides and grabbed him by his coat.

"Don't turn yer back on me, I'm talkin' to ye!"

Behind him, Bombur held his breath. The people who could allow themselves to have such familiarities with Thorin Oakenshield could actually be counted with half of the finger of one hand and, clearly, Bofur was not amongst them.

The glance that received from the heir of Durin made the poor dwarf tremble under his hat. But nevertheless he didn't step back.

"Ye can't leave 'im behind" said, lower than he would have liked to.

Thorin took a step towards him, intimidating. He was not as tall as Dwalin, but still the few centimetres that place him over Bofur seemed to be an unbeatable distance.

"Let. Me. Go." said.

Bofur oponed his fingers, letting go of the end of his King's coat.

Thorin stood up with all his height (if we could say that, talking about a dwarf) and talked loud and clear to everyone in the Company to hear him.

"Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it! _He's thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm_hearth _since_ first he stepped out of _his_ door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again" at this point, he stared at Bofur, who was certainly sure that his King was listening the night before, when Bilbo tried to slip away. "He is long gone.

"No. He isn't"

The startle that was given to Bofur was matched by Thorin's jump himself. Fourteen pairs of eyes gazed at the little figure of the hobbit who had just appeared in front of them, out of the blue.

The tension broke up, and the bearded faces of the dwarves shined big relieved grins. Not every one, however. Dwalin glanced at him in a wary way, and Thorin didn't drop his dark expression.

"Bilbo Baggins!" exclaimed Gandalf "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!

Bofur leaned over his mattock, feeling freed of a heavy burden.

"Bilbo! "said Kíli "We've given you up!"

Beside him, his brother gaped at the halfling:

"How on Earth did you get past the goblins?"

"How indeed?"

Al always, the suspicious voice of Thorin ruined the mood.

Gandalf tried to cover his burglar, who put his hands in his pockets, boldly nervous, but Thorin insisted:

"I want to know. Why did you come back?"

Bofur saw Bilbo's gaze slide past the faces of the members of the Company, feeling observed. Actually, he also wanted to know. Why was he there, with them, if he said that he wanted to leave?

Bilbo's voice shut off his thoughts.

"I know you doubt me, I know… I know you always have. You're right, I often think of Bag-End. I miss my books. And my armchair, my garden… See, that's were I belong. That's home. That's why I came back, 'cause… you don't have one" he paused and looked over Thorin's shoulder, to Bofur. "A home. It was… taken from you. But I will help you to take it back if y can"

Silence took over the dwarves, and even Thorin lowered his gaze.

That brief speech had touched them, straight in their hearts.

Gandalf let them rest a few moments before start walking, supported by his rod, cheering them up to continue their escape.

"Before the night falls and the goblins – or the orcs – find us!"

The Company started to get going, quickly. Bofur was about to follow them when an iron hand hold him in place by his arm. He turned his head and came up against the eyes of his King, a frown over them that was not a good omen. A little bit farther, Bilbo turned to them, not knowing if he was supposed to listen or not.

"Don't you dare to contradict me again" said Thorin "You do not decide whom we bring with us or whom we left behind. You were nobody back in Ered Luin, and that won't change if we reach the Mountain. You're not Durin's kin; you're not even from Erebor. You know nothing about this mission, and you know nothing of loosing your home. You're only here because of the free beer."

And, to Bilbo's surprise, Bofur remained silent, curling his hands into fists beneath the sleeves of his coat, avoiding the eyes of the other dwarf.

"I hope you'll remember" said finally Thorin, and he turned his back to go. He frowned at the sight of the hobbit standing there, but before he could say anything, Bofur stormed between them, catching Bilbo's shoulder with a swift hand, taking him away from there.

…

That very night, Thorin almost died. All his pride as King Under the Mountain, as Durin's son, meant nothing when he fell to the ground before the Pale Orc.

And was precisely the hobbit, the smallest of the whole Company, the most coward, the most useless of them, who set his life at a stake, defending the son of Thrain with his tiny sword out of it's sheath.

That very night, and that very dawn at the Carrock, rescued by the Eagles, Thorin Oakenshield received an humility lesson that will never be able to forget, but in the middle of the astonishment of seeing the Death so close, he only recalled the insults and scorns said to the halfling. In the middle of a bear-hug, Thorin finally accepted to call the little hobbit part of the Company.

Bofur was not a resentful person. He wouldn't know how to be so. Two days after, he had already forgotten his confrontation with his King. As much as his words stung him, he never thought of holding it over his head for he knows nothing about guiding people. The task that burdened Thorin's shoulders was hard, and he could not judge him without walking in his boots.

That's why, when Bilbo approach him, after eating at Beorn's table, while he smoked at the garden, under the light of the sun, at first he didn't know what was the hobbit talking about.

"So… you're not from Erebor…"

He took his pipe out of his mouth to answer:

"Why do ye ask?"

Bilbo plopped beside him, on the grass. The bees buzzed over them for a while, before flying to the flowers, a little bit farther.

"What Thorin said… was true, isn't it?"

Bofur was not a resentful person. He wouldn't know how to be so. Back there, in the Carrok, while watching the distant silhouette of the Mountain, he forgot Thorin's hard words, seeing tears in his eyes, reflecting on them Erebor's proud crest.

But whether he wanted it or not, there was the damage that words had caused.

His face went dark, and his look dropped to the ground.

"Leave it, Bilbo" muttered. He didn't want to feel hurt; he didn't want to bear a grudge against Thorin, because despite all this, he understood him.

But Bilbo didn't, or didn't want to see that there wasn't the best moment to insist.

"No, no. You told me you didn't have a home" he accused him "that none of you had. But you didn't live in Erebor, nor your family. Darn it!" exclaimed with frustration. "You made me feel guilty for wanting to go back! Now I don't regret it, of course, but…"

"Khazad-dûm"

Bilbo blinked and interrupted himself at the middle of a phrase.

"I beg your pardon?"

"We're from Khazad-dûm" repeated the dwarf "Bifur, Bombur and I. From Moria, if tha' name sounds more familiar to ye, though I've never been there meself. I was born in Dunland, before me family reached Ered Luin"

He looked at him without any trace of a smile on his face.

Bilbo recall then Balin's story about the Battle of Moria, and understood, maybe for the first time, that Erebor wasn't the only big loss of that Company.

He gulped, feeling his throat dry, all of a sudden.

"So…"

"We haven't a home either. Me family actually lived in Erebor, but I've never seen the Mountain. We don't belong to Ered Luin, despite we've never met nothin' better."

"Why don't you spoke when Thorin…"

"And risk to find meself out of the Company?, Nay, Bilbo. Sometimes ye cannot reason with Thorin Oakenshield, and the least of all, a low-class dwarf like meself"

He said that last thing with more anger that he really intended to. Because, despite he never gave much importance to his condition, he didn't want to be turn aside from a mission that he had already made his own. The excuse he had given, however, was pathetic. Free beer… as if that was so important.

His mother has told him stories about the great halls of Erebor, and he wanted to see them with his own eyes.

Bilbo was looking at him, not understanding anything.

"I thought the lot of you were equal…"

Bofur let go a derisive laugh:

"No race over the Earth could escape the hierarchy, Master Hobbit. Ye should know tha', if ye have read as much as Gandalf says"

He fell silent. Both of them fell silent. For several minutes the only thing to hear was the buzzing of the bees and the laughs of some of the dwarfs inside Beorn's house.

Finally, Bilbo spoke:

"I didn't thanked you properly for standing un for me" whispered "I was listening while I ran after you…" he was not lying, only omitting that, at that moment, he was invisible. "I've never thought… in spite of everything I told you at the cave… well…"

This time, Bofur's laugh was true. The dwarf threw an arm around the hobbit's neck, pulled the halfling to him and stirred up his hair with his other hand.

"If not for ye, lad, we've already be troll's food!" he talked back, smiling broadly "Even Thorin realises that ye would come at handy. Ye'll see; the trip will be a whole lot easier from now on, I'm sure of tha'!"

Bofur was not a resentful person, and finally Bilbo seemed to understand this. He freed himself from the dwarf's grip, combed swiftly his hair and pulled out his pipe.

"I hope so" he said, "because I'm looking forward to see your home. Do you know what does it looks like?"

"I imagine it huge" started to tell the dwarf. "Me mother described it to me like an enormous cavern of carved stone, at the heart of the Lonely Mountain itself…"

The smoke rings floated towards the sky while Bofur talked. He's never seen Erebor, but he wore it inside his heart, as everyone else.

And, seeing already the shadow of Mirkwood, they were nearer than ever of reaching that Promised Land.

…

They've never thought that the whole thing would get so complicated, neither Thorin.

There they were, digging in the dragon's treasure searching, not the Arkenstone, but weapons, shields and helmets.

The War was knocking on the Mountain's doors with the insistence of the thrush.

Thorin woke up from his madness, and came to told them they will fight almost half an hour ago.

Poor Thorin; for days he have turned into his grandfather, the same insanity poisoning his mind.

He talked to the Company, one by one, addressing them the last few words after the combat.

Finally, he stood before Bofur:

"I shouldn't have told you those things the night we almost burned on the pines" said, crestfallen.

Bofur, whom we could call a few things, but never resentful, shook his head and smiled.

"I shouldn't have done many things, and here I am" answered "Let the past be in the past."

Never was in his head the plan of holding that against his King, even less so when over his heads, and even in the dark, Erebor enchanted them with all the force of the old legends.

The King Under the Mountain bowed his head, thankful, and placed a hand on his shoulder:

"You and your family belong now to Erebor"

Then, he watched the rest of his Company.

"I don't know what will be our fate in this battle, nor if we will come alive from it. That's why I don't want to wear as armour regrets from the past. I've never forgotten that the twelve of you where the only ones who came at my call, when all was lost" he paused, looking at his loyal friends with a sparkle of emotion and pride that no-one had ever seen in the son of Thrain's gaze "We're the dwarves of Erebor. All of us" Bofur was able to catch the brief look the King gave him, and felt a lump in the throat, while his smile widened. "This is our home, and so it will be until the Mountain itself collapses over our heads!"

Balin nodded with tears in his eyes; finally, the wandering dwarves were at home. His brother threw an armoured arm over his shoulders, and both of them joined their heads.

They wished Fundin was alive to see that.

Thorin waited for a moment before ordering Bifur and Bombur to pull the sheaves that were going to thrust the giant bell into the barricade.

"It seems that I won't be able to apologize to Marter Baggins before starting the attack" said at last "I hope that if any of you survives and sees him one day, tell him that Thorin Oakenshield was wrong. Again. Now, my brothers, Whould you follo me one last time?"

The first one to raise his weapon was Dwalin, swiftly followed by the sons of Dís. After them, the rest hoisted axes, mattocks, swords and maces.

Thorin raised his own sword (not _Orcrist_, for he have lost it in the Woodland Realm) and gave the order.

"_Barûk Khazâd!_" shouted. "_Khazâd-ai mênu!_"

And the bell smashed the wall, sending the pieces past Erebor's doors that, for the first time in so many years, where wide open.

Raising his mattock, Bofur run beside the rest of them, leaving the shadow of the Mountain to defend his home.

A roar rose in the throats of the thirteen dwarves of Erebor and spread over the protégées of Mahal standing at that valley:

"_Khayum Thane! Khayum 'Urd!_"

For the Victory of the King. For the Victory of the Mountain.

And that battle was soon worthy of turning into a legend.

8


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